


The world is not enough

by Mountainfall, Orlha



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Family Shenanigans, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8586901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mountainfall/pseuds/Mountainfall, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: Family AU in which Daisy and Darcy are half sisters and their father is Tony Stark.  And they really, really want a Dum-E. Shenanigans ensues.





	

Darcy and Daisy were aware that while their father was the same, their mothers were different from a young age. They bickered a lot and despite their loud, raucous arguments, they never let _anyone_ bully each other - anyone including their dad. It was an event that happened surprisingly often. He never did it on purpose. He loved his daughters. But every now and then something would happen and the girls were forced to take up arms against him.

Largely left to their devices, they found out the best way to provoke a response from their dad and nursemaid that definitely pulled him out of his ‘ _adult area only_ ’ place was to paint the house pink - fluorescent pink. The girls were extremely bored when they discovered this. They had long ago slipped away from their nursemaid and would only move locations so that she wouldn’t find them.

They had been sitting in the living room. It had lasted far longer as a base then there other spots surprisingly. Their nursemaid must have realized no one was dumb enough to hide in such an open space. Which, of course, was why they chose it. But sitting in one spot and doing nothing is never a good idea for them.  

Pepper had that _look_ on her face when she saw the walls _and_ floor pink. She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. “I’ll get your dad,” she told the girls who were sitting in the living room innocently playing with legos.

“Good luck!” Darcy called out and stuck down the final piece of their lego city. The lego city spawned over several feet long and were at least halfway as tall as Pepper.

To their surprise, their dad was right behind Pepper grumbling loudly but she had managed pull him out of the lab. They inhaled sharply knowing this was either going to go really bad, or really well for them.

“Okay troublemakers,” he frowned, eyeing the pink walls before studiously staring at the lego city, blinking his eyes repetitively. “This colour has to be illegal, it’s making me tear. How did you get the colour and how long did you take to paint the living room… Please tell me it’s just the living room… Pepper! Check the other rooms and tell me how far they got.”

“Sir-” Ingrid, their nursemaid, finally _found_ them and like how their dad was, she was blinking furiously, averting her eyes from the all too bright pink walls and floor. “It’s all over, including your room.”  

“I need a drink-”

“It’s nine in the morning, Tony,” Pepper cut him off immediately, blocking his path to the bar.

"And your point is?"

"You need to deal with this Tony."

"I am. By getting a drink."

"You know that's not what I meant."

He sighed and looked upward as though to ask for patience or something. Darcy wasn’t so sure, but then he pursed his lips and asked the one thing they had been gunning for, "Fine." He looked at the girls, "What can I give you to make sure you don't do this again?"

Darcy and Daisy looked at each other, amusement twinkled in their eyes. They had long ago mastered the art of speaking to each other without actually speaking. They were so good at it most people would have thought they were twins if not for their extremely different appearances. Darcy arched an eyebrow at her sister who hid her amusement with a twist of her lips before nodding. Coming to a conclusion, they looked back at Tony, grins stretching from ear to ear.

Darcy acted as the two's spokesperson raised her chin and pulled herself to her full size - which wasn’t a lot but she still tried and told their dad, "We want a robot."

"Like Dum-E," Daisy chirped, moving to stand beside her sister.

"No," he said.

"But, Daaad!" They whined in unison.

“What are you going to do with a robot? Robots are _boringgg._ ” He crouched down, smoothed Darcy’s collar and rubbed the streak of paint off Daisy’s face. “How about a ranch? I'll buy you two a ranch. All girls want a pony at some point, right?" He looked to Pepper for confirmation on that last point.

"Actually Tony, when I was their age. I wanted a monster truck," She told him.

He floundered, uncertain what to do with this information. His mouth opened and closed several times, causing his daughters to laugh at his fish impression. After a moment he seem to come back to himself. "I'm buying the two of you your own personal ranch," He turned, ruffled their hairs before heading back to his lab. As he walked, he shouted, "Ingrid, take the girls back to their room. They're not allowed out until Dum-E cleans up all the paint. After that's finished then take them to the ranch Pepper is currently purchasing."

"Yes, Sir," Ingrid turned to look at her charges, but they were already gone. The nursemaid groaned and ran off in a random direction to find them.

Pepper heaved a sigh and went to buy the girls a ranch. She pondered where it should be. Montana sounded nice.

\----

The ranch was a moderate sized ranch - ‘moderate’ _Stark size_ that is that housed over eighty horses. That said, because they purchased every single horse that the ranch housed along with the ranch hands, manager and the land it sat on, they had the pick of the litter.

The manager stared at them, Daisy could see his eye twitch as Pepper introduced them as the new owners. “This is some kind of fu-”

His second-in-charge clapped a hand over his mouth before he could get the second syllable out. “There are children here.”

“Those _children_ happen to be the owners too,” Pepper smiled. “Don’t worry Mr Meyers. They’ll only be owners in name until otherwise. Beyond the horses that the girls chooses, you’ll have full control still. The only difference is that you now have Stark Industries backing.” The two girls watched Pepper lean back in the chair and despite her laconic positioning, there was something visceral in the smile that played on her face.

Darcy leaned over to Daisy and whispered, “I think I’m in love with her.”

Daisy chuckled and whispered back, “I think I am too. Can we get dad marry her so she can be with us forever?”

“Imagine never needing to worry about having enough for your horses?” Pepper tilted her head at the manager, once owner.

He closed his mouth and jerked his head to his second-in-charge. “Roy will show you to the horses.”

Roy was several years older than them, brown hair with soft, kind eyes. Efficaciously friendly, he made small talk as he showed them around the barn, introducing them to the various horses and basically not treating them as the six year olds that they really were - which was nice.The two girls decided that since they had nothing better to do that they would master riding.

“If you want to learn to ride you need a horse with good temperament. When you get good at riding you can ride some of the wilder one, but since you’re just beginners best to start you off easy. You also need a horse you have a good connection with. Well, it’s not necessary but it makes for a better experience,” he explained and motioned to the smaller horses housed in the stables.

“But what if I want to ride that horse?” Darcy pointed to a pasture outside the barn to a fenced off pasture.

He followed her gaze, “That’s a cow.” He said as her stared at the large tan and white bovine.

“No, it’s a horse,” She said obstinately.

“It really isn’t,” He argued.

“Of course it is. What else would it be? Granted it looks slightly different from your average horse, but it is still clearly a horse,” She nodded, clearly proud at herself for winning the argument.

He sighed, “Fine you can learn to ride the special . . . _horse_.” Darcy grinned with triumph. “But only after you learn to ride a normal horse.”

Her expression fell, “Fine.” She pouted.

“Can I have this deal apply to me as well?” Daisy asked.

“Sure, why not?” He slumped his shoulders tiredly at her words.

The girls cheered and ran off to pick a normal horse to ride. Darcy ended up choosing a stocky chestnut quarter horse, while Daisy decided to ride the grey arabian mare.

“Those are some nice horses. You girls chose well.” Roy said. “We have a bit of a tradition here. The first person to ride a horse is the one that gets to name it. Think hard before deciding. Once they are named, no one else on the ranch can change the name.”

“I don’t need time to decide,” Darcy said proudly. “I’m going to name him Moocow!”

Roy facepalmed.

Meanwhile Daisy almost died laughing. Such a typical Darcy thing to do. Her sister was hilarious. “Ha, ha, ha, nice one Darcy,” She paused, the shouted. “That’s it!” She looked the the arabian, “I’ll name you Ha Ha Ha.”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that.”

She looked at the groom, “Why not?”

“Because there is already a registered horse with that name.”

“Oh,” She looked back at the horse. Suddenly she grinned again, “We’ll just name you ‘Ha’ then!”

He glanced at the two of them and scratched the back of his neck. “Yes little misses, if that’s the names you want.”

\----

It didn’t take them to long to get good at riding. They were by no means masters, but they could ride and hold a conversation at the same time. And a little bit after that they were able to ride around without constant supervision. They had to stay in shouting distance, but both girls found that completely reasonable.

They had ridden of to one of the empty barns on the edge of the main hub when Daisy said, “This is fun and all, but I'm kinda bored.”

“Speak for yourself. This is fun and I'm gonna learn to ride the cow.” Darcy replied.

“No, the part you're having fun with is making all the different ranch hands believe you genuinely think the cow is special kind of horse.“

“True,” Darcy conceded with a snort.

“And fun as that is,” Daisy continued. “It's not a robot.”

“Also true.”

“I have a solution.”

Darcy looked at her sister, “You think we should build our own robot don't you?” Daisy grinned. “But where would we get supplies? We're on a ranch. Is not like we can sneak into dad's workshop a and grab the necessary stuff-“

“But we still have wifi so I can get a copy of Dum-E’s programming, and is like you said. We're on a ranch. Steal engine parts from one machine, grab a couple more from a different one. Or they probably have a supply room somewhere where they keep extra parts, and there will definitely be copper wire in there. I’m sure with enough distraction, we can grab parts from dad’s lab. We just need a place to keep it all.”

“We're next to an empty barn Daisy. I think we'll have a place to keep all of our smuggled supplies.”

“Well then, let's do it,” Daisy grinned wildly at her sister, nearly falling of her horse in her excitement.

\---

It had been several weeks later before they finally managed to smuggle the parts out and discreetly carry them to the barn in their tiny haversacks.

“I think we got all the parts we need,” Daisy looked at the parts that they had stashed in the barn and back at the diagram that they had snuck out. “Now the only thing we have to figure out is where to begin.”

Darcy looked over the plans, “Well since the CPU is at the heart of everything, maybe we should make sure that it works first. Did you bring your laptop?” Then she scoffed, giving her younger sister a wry grin. “Stupid question. Since when are you _without_ your laptop.”

It took them perhaps the whole of the next two days before the robot began looking anything remotely the diagram. Daisy had ran parts of the hardware through a program as Darcy soldered each chip onto the motherboard, screwing each screw with careful precision. They were Starks that grew up accustomed to their dad’s lab explosions and Pepper’s mothering.

So true to Pepper’s constant mothering, they checked each part was in working order. “Hey I think our robot looks better than Dummy.” They said together. The two sister stood away, staring at it with pride. This is _their_ robot. Nothing could spoil this moment now, nothing except-

“Well that isn’t hard, Dum-E is a bit of a derp,” A masculine voice behind them said. They spun around horrified to see Tony standing behind them.

“How long have you been standing there?” Daisy asked

“Long enough.”

“You shouldn’t spy on people,” Darcy said angrily.

Tony ignored the comment, “Well start it up. It might look better then Dum-E but that doesn’t mean it functions better. And really the second one is the more important of the two.” He crouched by the robot, running a hand across the piston and sheets of metal that they stolen from his lab. “Nice welding though,” he smirked at them and thumbed at the laptop. “Fire it up, girls.”

The two girls stared at each other in shock. They weren’t in trouble for going behind Dad’s back? Daisy hesitated, then hit the start button on the laptop.

The robot shuddered to life and the system console on Daisy’s laptop started repeating the letter “U”.

“Why is it doing that?” Tony asked as he peered over Daisy’s shoulder.

“Oh I put an extra -” Daisy muttered, typing furiously on the keyboard and whatever that had been the issue was fixed. “Hello You there~”

“You mean _U_ ,” Darcy snickered. The robot turned and waved at them, opening and closing it claws. “What functions did you add, D?”

“Oh, like voice command activation, DD,” she grinned back. “Pick the pole up, bot.” The robot swiveled around, gripping the pole between its clamps and handed it to Daisy.

“That’s pretty awesome,” Tony said. He circled it and turned to his girls. “Very good job. I never could get the voice command to work properly. How did you get it to work?”

“I added a rule thingy, deduction?” Daisy replied though her answer was less unsure.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll confess that this was actually supposed to be a 10 chp series in which Darcy and Skye gets developed into the characters we know now. Except life got in the way and we shelved it and welllllllllll… this is now a one-shot because it’s incredibly unlikely we return poking at it. I secretly headcanon Roy to be Elliot Spencer from Leverage. - Orlha


End file.
